I am the Mum.If life was a circus, I would be the plate-juggling lady with monkeys on her shoulders who stands on one leg on a horse's back as it canters around the ring.

I am the Writer.I use too many commas, dashes and dot-dot-dots, and I often start sentences with conjunctions because I like my blog to look the way it sounds in my mind.

I am the Hero.Life is a bit like a superhero action comic, except that the superheroes are tiny children dressed in super-suits who possess no actual powers, while I just get them food, break up fights and clean their super-suits.

Buzz is the Superhero who saves my day. He is a faithful friend and brother, willing to lead his sidekicks into intergalactic adventures ... to infinity and beyond.

Jessie is a feisty cowgirl who knows her mind and is willing to give anyone a piece of it. She is wild and spirited, she loves large animals but is terrified of small harmless critters. Jessie would rather find a rattlesnake in her boot than have her hair washed and brushed.

Woody loves rounding up his gang and charming the crowd. He's not keen on the war-whoops of the other varmints or on being smothered with too much affection, but he loves seeing the lay of the land while riding high in the arms of his Sheriffs.

Rex is the much-awaited newest member of our outfit. He joined us in July 2012, and is therefore too young to have much said about him. He drinks a lot of milk and all he can say is "Rarr!"

"No, Buzz, I AM your father."

Mr de Elba is dark and handsome with a loud laugh. He is a fun and loving father who enjoys spending time with his children. He's great at computers - this means I have my own personal IT Guy, but also that he often falls asleep in front of computer games at night. He makes great coffee, does the best Chicken Tikka Masala, cooks a mean barbecue and plays guitar frightfully well. He is, however, no good at doing accents.

Bullseye has been contributing to Blue-Tongue Lizard and Bandicoot Attrition Rates since we moved in to a new house which backs onto some forest. She either moves in quantum motion or possesses the power of ubiquity. She can often be seen, apparently simultaneously, at both the side door and the back door. Her arch-nemeses include dogs and other animals smaller than her. She harbours a deep envy of aeroplanes and birds who possess what she so desperately craves: Altitude.

My sweet niece ...

12 March 2014

In ten years, I will say, "It was really hard ten years ago, but it's okay now."

In ten years, I will say that Buzz's school journey was a difficult one. He always seemed to be such a bright child, eager to learn and happy to help his teachers and his peers. But I'll say that ten years ago, he was misunderstood, particularly in one of his favourite places: school. He was criticised for his daydreaminess, his good qualities were overlooked, his imperfections were made into mountains and clearly, it was his mother's parenting that was to blame. In ten years I will look back and say that he was just a little boy who hummed to himself while doing his maths and got in trouble for it. Who lost concentration during tasks both at home and at school, and was redirected at home but made an example of at school. Who read widely but made lots of spelling errors, leading to miserable marks. Who could solve complex mathematical problems but who couldn't tell you what three times seven was, again leading to miserable marks. In ten years I will look back on all the sleepelss nights I spent crying into boxes of tissues as I wept for the intelligent little boy whose self-image as a learner was brought so low by the exacting expectations that he would be the perfectly smooth, round peg fitting in the perfectly smooth, round academic hole. I will look back and remember how terribly hard it was.

In ten years, I will say that Jessie's life journey was a hard one. Being the perfectly smooth, round peg in the perfectly smooth, round academic hole, she was adulated, praised and built up to expect that she would never have to put effort in to achieve success, and when effort was inevitably required, how she raged against the injustice of it all. I'll remember how receiving praise and honour at school caused her to expect it in every area of her life, and how bitterly disappointed she was to realise that her brothers disagreed and fought with her, and her parents corrected her and didn't allow her to show a bad attitude when corrected. I'll remember how the bitter fights between siblings became impossible to referee because they all had such a perfect cover story, each one conflicting with the other siblings' stories until my mind was whirling and confused, trying to sort out who did what to whom over the cacophony in my house which I couldn't stop because I couldn't make myself heard. In ten years I will look back and remember how terribly hard it was.

In ten years, I will say that Woody's fighting and screaming drove me up the wall. I will remember how the quiet meek little baby turned into an angry dervish, whose main motivation was to avoid being dominated by his two older siblings with their strong personalities. I will remember how, in order to establish himself as an individual who was not to be squashed, he used his voice as a weapon to shock and awe. And I will remember how every single parenting trick in the book was inadequate against his desire to stamp his authority on the world using nothing but anger and decibels. In ten years I will shake my head and remember how awfully hard and loud it was.

In ten years, I will say that Rex was pleasant and self-directed most of the time, but when things really mattered (e.g., when I was helping two children do their separate homework activities in that 15-minute window when they were sitting, books open, thinking about the work, and intellectually engaged, or when I was having a critical conversation with another child at the perfect "teachable moment", or when I was enjoying the only five-minute period of the day when I could actually talk with my husband, or when I was negotiating the difficult intersection in rainy weather in a fogged-up car full of sweaty, chattering bodies) - when it really mattered, he moaned, screamed, complained or he grabbed onto my legs and asked to be picked up, put down, picked up, and to be taken over to the light switch so he could switch it on and off and on and off. And I'll remember how I did it all on a total of two and a half hours sleep which was snatched in three separate intervals the night before in between Rex waking up and crying because it was dark/he was lonely/he'd lost his toy iguana/it was nicer in the womb and he wanted to go back. I'll remember that, and how I could never find the words to really explain how revoltingly hard it was.

In ten years, there will be different challenges. But I suspect that today's tears, anxieties, frustrations and sleepless nights will have paved the way for everything to be okay. I think that in ten years time, Buzz will have taught himself to tame his imagination and discipline himself to sit and work. And because of that, he will have risen and shone. I bet he's done well at school, music, sport and also in his personal and spiritual life. I bet it's all okay.

In ten years, I'm sure that Jessie will have harnessed her natural abilities and learned that if she puts in effort, she will conquer anything she sets her mind to. I suspect that her current career wishes of being (1) a teacher, (2) a baby photographer and (3) a dolphin trainer may have refined somewhat, but whatever she decides to do with her life, she will do it with grace and humility, along with the competence that comes naturally for her.

In ten years, I think Woody will be mellow and cool. He will have done well at school due to a combination of natural ability and no fear of hard work. He may even be a peacemaker, as his natural personality shines through. And in ten years' time, Rex will be able to use words to express himself and exist in a different cubic meterage to me without moaning. I'm sure he will be all other sorts of nice things too.

In ten years, I don't think people will look at me and wonder where I went wrong, and I don't think I'll try to change my parenting to please them any more, either. I think people will see I was doing the best I could at the time, and I wasn't doing it all wrong in the first place. I think people will finally see that bringing four strong and very different children from infancy to competent and productive adulthood is a process, not a matter of telling them on Monday how to be perfect, and having a perfect child starting on Tuesday.

In ten years, you will remembering how wonderful it was when the children were still at primary school,and how hard it is to be coping with teenagers and the onset of puberty in Rex. No one has ever embarked on parenthood with all the answers. Masses of love and a hefty dose of commonsense will almost certainly give them the best start in the world. You seem to be making a pretty good fist of it so far!

what a beautifully balanced view of your children. Your description of Jessie could be describing me when I was at school, it took finishing school, dropping out of university and getting a job for me to learn how to work hard and now I'm studying to be a teacher so something worked.

I know. It seems crazy to go back to pseudonyms now that Mister Internet knows our real (first) names. I blogged for 8 months with real names because I love the names that I gave my children, and I wanted my friends to know us better! Now that you do, I'm ready to go back to my original blog genre using pseudonyms, so here we go.

This does mean that "Jessie" is onto her fourth Blog Name. What can I say? I've never found the perfect one.

Jones quips, "Hence the expression - Givin' ya the Elber!" (giving you the elbow, i.e., pushing you around.) I thought that Givinya de Elba was a half-decent pseudonym for someone who likes to joke and push people around, and I stuck with that.

"Er, sweetheart, killing a fly with a ukulele is probably the wrong thing to do ..."

I thought it sounded like something I'd say; something that summed up the parenting experience quite well. A bizarre yet offhand, languid suggestion that pest control was best achieved without the use of musical instruments.